My two cents, for both you and katakowsj. I played with guns a ton, played every violent video game available in the late '80s and early '90s, wrestled with my friends, you name it. And I'm about as anti-war and non-violent as you can get. There's so much more to it than the toys we play with: it was the context. The scarier thing for me, looking back, was the degree of nationalism that went with the Cold War. I was lucky in that I was too young to get the full brunt of that, but then was old enough by the time 9/11 happened (18) that I had enough foundation not to be suckered in. Humans are humans, and we're still around because our ancestors were willing to kill someone else to survive. That hasn't left us, so we can pretend that those thoughts aren't there or allow them some healthy expression. Moreover, self-defense is a right and isn't something that should be stigmatized.